Healdsburg Ranches Winery

2011Appellation Series Pinot Noir Russian River Valley

Pinot Noir •Floodgate Vineyard

California: Russian River Valley

Offer Expired:May 10, 2013 at 11:59 pm

Mission Briefing

Codename:

The Floodplain

We are thrilled, today, to bring you another fantastic wine for our latest Buy One - Get One event! Today’s delicious and affordable Pinot Noir is made even more palatable with today’s BOGO offering. For every bottle that you purchase at $24.99, you can buy another one at just $0.07.

A bright, lively, approachable Pinot Noir, today’s Healdsburg Ranches 2011 Appellation Series Russian River Pinot Noir delivers a very full drinking experience. Delicious, elegant and very food friendly, this Pinot Noir can be enjoyed all on its own, or with a wide variety of foods.

Impressive, especially at the wine’s regular price, this offering is an incredible value at today’s Buy One - Get One price. This Pinot Noir is silky and very smooth, with flavors that cover the entire palate, leaving no corner of the mouth untouched by the wine’s delicious flavors.

If you love great Pinot Noir, and you crave a great deal, this wine will surely satisfy!

Tasting Profile

Look:

A dark ruby core fades to fine pink edges. After swirling, the wine settles quickly in the glass.

Very broad, with flavors that coat the palate. Bold tannin drives flavors to the far corners of the mouth and a very gradual dryness settles in.

Pairing:

Easy to pair, we’d recommend this wine with a pork tenderloin drizzled with a red wine sauce with currants.

What the Winery Says

The Vineyard

Sourced from the Floodgate vineyard, located on low lying land not far from the heart of Russian River Valley, this location offers a combination of sunlight and fog that is ideal for slow ripening and preservation of the fruit’s natural acidity. The resulting grapes deliver a wonderful balance between aromatics and flavors.

Soils in this vineyard are a combination of Glen Ellen and Wilson Grove Formations. The former is composed of river gravels while the latter is mainly uplifted sea floor. Both soil types drain well and provide a wonderful growing platform. This is nearly ideal pinot noir territory, and the resulting character of the wine is evident.

The Winemaking

The fruit was brought to the winery, where it was sorted, destemmed, and gently augured into small open-top fermenters. The fruit underwent a long, slow fermentation and when entirely dry, was transferred to a basket press for a gentle pressing. The combination of free-run juice and press wine was then transferred to French oak barrels for aging. The wine was racked only once off the gross lees before a final racking for blending and bottling.

The Wine

Quintessential pinot noir flavors of dark berries, cherry and rhubarb combine on the palate with the spicy flavors of vanilla. The nose indicates that the wine will be full of fruit but the palate shows the savory elements of pinot noir. Indeed, a classic Russian River Valley pinot noir, with a silky smooth finish eminently enjoyable throughout.

Apellation

Russian River Valley

Variety

Pinot Noir

Fermentation

French Oak

Alcohol

13.60%

Bottled

October 2012

About the Winery

The North Coast of California, that area to the west of the Mayacamas Mountains and north of San Francisco, is a patchwork of microclimates suitable for nearly any agricultural pursuit. In the early days of the California wine industry Healdsburg was the center of the North Coast, a small farm town where the ranchers and farmers would come to get the tools, equipment, and supplies needed to maintain their ranches as well as themselves. It was here that they would also buy the local wines, varietally labeled, reasonably priced, and darn good.

Over the years, the wine industry has grown remarkably throughout the North Coast, and Healdsburg as well as much of its surroundings have gentrified. But those of us who remember the not-so-old days still recall those local wines, lacking pretense and flash, but possessing a quality that is rare even today. Every time you tasted one of those wines you felt that you had grossly underpaid for it.

The wines of Healdsburg Ranches are an homage to these wines. Produced only a handful of decades ago, from vineyards all over the North Coast, they were continually present while we were discovering and learning about the wine business in California, and we remember them well.

Today, our wines are produced from great vineyard sources using time-honored techniques (with a little modern technology thrown in), and our hope is that you will taste in them what we tasted back then. Wines true to their variety and place of origin, balanced, smooth, easy to drink, and hard to forget.

Winemaker Virginia Marie Lambrix

While on vacation in South Africa, Virginia Lambrix tasted her first “serious wine.” Captured always by a love of nature and the out-of-doors, she determined it was time to learn about the art of the vineyard – viticulture. Within a year, Virginia was studying horticulture and agronomy in the master’s program at the University of California, Davis, with an emphasis on viticulture and enology. Upon graduation, she worked at the Hendry Ranch in Napa, and for Concha y Toro in Chile.

In 2004, Virginia visited a biodynamic farm in Chile. It was immediately clear to her that the biodynamic principles of respecting nature and nurturing ecology within the vineyard made sense in both a scientific framework and on an intuitive level. She embraced the philosophy and made a point to study and implement its principles at every opportunity. With this knowledge, she returned to work in California for Lynmar and De Loach Vineyards, both of which are in the Russian River Valley.

During her three years at De Loach Vineyards, Virginia worked closely with her growers, moving their vineyards to more sustainable farming methodologies and, in the process, improving quality and moderating farming costs. Her mentor at De Loach, Greg La Follette, taught her to understand both vineyards and winemaking at an intuitive level.

Working side-by-side with winemakers Hugh Chappelle at Lynmar Estate and Greg La Follette, Virginia couldn’t help but follow their winemaking with interest and in 2008 she began making wine for Truett Hurst Winery. Bringing her former background in the Russian River Valley to the attention of the Truett Hurst team, she added Russian River Valley wines to the winery’s portfolio.

Today, she oversees winemaking for Truett Hurst wines in Dry Creek Valley, VML Winery in Russian River Valley, as well as the Bradford Mountain and Healdsburg Ranches brands.

Virginia is a strong advocate for alternative agriculture. She is currently on the Demeter Board for education on biodynamic farming, with the goal of developing educational resources for farmers who are pursuing this approach to farming.

As your agent, we can assist in selecting a common carrier for the shipment of wine that you have purchased and own. The majority of states maintain laws and regulations that control or restrict the importation of alcohol. In all cases, the purchaser is responsible for complying with the laws and regulations, including in particular those relating to the import of alcohol, in effect in the state to which the purchaser is shipping alcohol.